


die with your darlings

by thelovelies



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-07
Updated: 2017-06-07
Packaged: 2018-11-10 14:13:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11128509
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thelovelies/pseuds/thelovelies
Summary: Cassian and Jyn's final moments on the beach. Told from Cassian's POV.





	die with your darlings

Cassian could feel the heat radiating from the looming explosion. It started as a slow warmth, gradually bringing feeling to his numb, fractured spine, but he knew it would soon be too hot to bear. The tingle on his skin was a glimpse at the pain he’d feel when the blast came for him and Jyn. Maybe it burns, but it does draw attention from the other various aches and pains. He can’t discern which kind of hurt is worse.

He endures it, though, because he knows Jyn is hurting more than he ever could, staring silently into the flames. She holds on to him as tightly as she can, even with her body quivering and sweaty. Cassian can’t blame her, for he knows he’d be shaking if Jyn wasn’t doing enough for the both of them.

Cassian could almost imagine her face. Jyn’s steely green eyes would be cold, taking in more light then they ever had before. Yet they would remain unflinching and dry: she’d let her retinas burn until she was blind before she cried again. Cassian wished he could do the same. He had tried to keep his eyes dry for her, uphold the thin shield of machismo that he had quickly plastered on for the sake of his friends , but then again, his friends were dead. He and Jyn had walked by their destroyed ship. They had both known that Bodhi met his end there, even if they couldn’t see the splattering of skin and blood and bones that coated the ships remaining walls. Chirrut and Baze’s mangled bodies followed not soon after, only a few meters from each other. They must have known they would meet their ends together. So Cassian decided that in this instance, it was okay for him to cry.

He was about to die, after all.

Tears slipped silently down his face, fat and heavy with years of anguish and ignored angst, and fear. Force, so much fear. He’d never understood just how much time he’d spent afraid. As much as he wished he could ignore it, the wave of terror crashed into him. It did not come in slow, lapping waves, but as a tsunami. Cassian was suddenly aware of the dread that came to drown him before missions. The water filled his lungs faster and faster with each coming assignment. With a shallow gasp, he realized this was the mission where he started out underwater, unable to breathe.

He looked up, hoping to blink away the drops that had pooled around his eyes, hoping to find the oxygen that was so narrowly evading him, only to see the monstrosity. The source of his suffering.

The Death Star.

It seemed to have its own eye, sunken into the crater that sent Scarif a bright green laser as a funeral present. Or a death promise. Nevertheless, it watched him. Stared at him as he held Jyn -- the love of his life was grasping at him -- because each other was the last thing they’d ever feel. It did this to him, kept him from finally reaching into the bag of futures and grasping one of the long straws, one of the fairytale futures he had been dreaming of ever since he was six years old. His mother loved to read him stories of princes and princesses, knights and kings and queens. Cassian had never shared her passion for such stories, but when he met Jyn in that control room, he understood. 

He and Jyn in Coruscant. She’d be a senator and he’d be her loyal bodyguard. Cassian would be his beautiful Queen’s most trusted knight, equals in every way but title. Or maybe Jedha City hadn’t been destroyed, and it had never been a warzone. The temple had never been sucked dry, and Baze and Chirrut were still alive, guarding their precious worship hall. Bodhi was a true pilot, a Captain of his own fleet, with a home in Jedha for him and his sisters. Cassian and Jyn lived close by with their children, three girls, who visited their uncles as much as they could. Family dinners every week. Baze, Chirrut, and Bodhi would always be their family. In every future, they were his family.

But of course, Cassian had pulled the absolute shortest straw the universe could have thrown carelessly into the sack. Here he kneeled, holding the woman of his dreams as they waited for death to swallow them whole. Cassian could no longer bare to look at it, towering over him in the sky, so he stopped. He buried his face into Jyn’s neck, and she flinched. He didn’t think she’d realised that he was crying. But it was enough to make her stop shivering,

Who could have predicted that Cassian Jeron Andor would have fallen in love with a woman he just met, moments before their deaths.

He always had poor timing. 

Pain brought Cassian from his thoughts. The fire was inches from him, lighting up his nerves individually, one by one they ignited and separated. Cassian could feel himself being ripped apart. Moment after moment after moment, atoms left him to join the blast. First left his shoes, then his toes, crawling up his calves until it reached his back and buttocks -- at least the fracture couldn’t hurt him now -- and found Jyn’s face. She was holding him, but she was still gone. Before the energy ate them, before they became stardust, he needed her to hear something. Three little words that he had been holding in since he stole her from that internment camp in Wobani.

“Jyn, I-”

Bang. Another lover hits the universe.

**Author's Note:**

> the final quote and the title come from my favorite movie, kill your darlings (die with your darlings, kill your darlings, you get it). i also put single quotes around cassian's hopes n dreams because i wanted it to be understood that they're not a part of the actual storyline. hope you enjoyed!


End file.
